Holiday Season Planning Starts Now

It’s never too early to start planning your online retailing strategy for the next holiday season, and finding the right technologies to achieve success should be at the top of your to-do list. Last year, web sales grew approximately 15% in November and December. Many online retailers were successful during holiday campaigns such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday due to their anticipation of providing the best customer experience possible on their webshops.

E-retailers noted that online holiday shopping traffic is peaking earlier and lasting longer, which means that they need to be prepared for every day in the holiday shopping period, not just major campaign days like Cyber Monday. They also identified that the same customer experience should be offered on all devices, as more consumers shop on their phones and tablets. According to Bigcommerce, mobile devices were reported to be used for 30% of all purchases that took place on e-retail sites during the holiday season, and those mobile transactions accounted for 25% of overall e-retailer revenue.

Potential performance issues lurking in webshop infrastructure should also be identified and corrected, especially those seen in the previous year. Places where performance could be significantly improved should be prioritized, such as maintaining webshop stability and speed without a noticeable drop in performance during high volume traffic peaks. Selling internationally can also affect website performance in different locations, so e-retailers should strive to deliver a consistent and high-quality customer experience for customers worldwide.

Third-party webshop add-ons and content can pose a performance issue that e-retailers should realize responsibility of and plan for, since they can directly affect website performance in terms of speed and security during high volume traffic. It is advisable to test the third-party components against high traffic prior to the holiday campaign launches to gauge their reaction to stress. In doing so, you’ll gain a complete understanding of your webshop operations and be able to better anticipate website performance during unexpected traffic peaks.

Finding performance issues early can help e-retailers meet consumer expectations, since uptimes, page load times, and access consistency determine customer conversion rates that directly impact revenue and overall profitability. Make the most of your next holiday rush by planning ahead and making a detailed risk assessment of your webshop’s performance and customer experience; this way, you’ll confidently launch your next high traffic holiday campaign ready for the unexpected.

For more information on how Queue-it can help your webshop performance, please contact us or come see us at our upcoming retail tradeshows!